2024 Election Campaigns: A Rocky Road to the White House

(Left) Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 18, 2024; (Right) Former president Donald J. Trump speaks at Trump Tower in New York City on Sept. 26, 2024. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images; Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

News Analysis

The 2024 road to the White House has been riddled with more potholes, landmines, and detours than anyone could have imagined.

Amid a string of historic events, a few stand out as the most pivotal. The Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, faced multiple criminal and civil court cases, and survived two assassination attempts. His opponent for the majority of the two-year campaign, President Joe Biden, exited the race after a difficult debate; then the Democratic Party chose Vice President Kamala Harris as a last-minute replacement to oppose Trump.

“By all accounts, everyone regards this as the most unique election of their lifetime,” said Susan MacManus, a retired political science professor who has studied U.S. elections for more than 50 years.

Any one of those events “would have turned the election on its heels” during past election cycles, MacManus said.

“It really hasn’t,” she said, “and it shows the competitiveness and the polarization of the country.”

The word “unprecedented” accurately describes many occurrences this campaign season. But that term doesn’t rightfully apply to the overall political climate of the season, Jeff Bloodworth, a professor of American political history at Gannon University, told The Epoch Times.

“The late 19th history was like this,” he said. “The early Republic also featured rough-and-tumble elections.”

From an historical perspective, “the post-1945 era is a placid outlier in American political life,” Bloodworth said.

“We aren’t used to this sort of politics, because the era we are exiting was defined by consensus.”

Through the ups and downs of the 2024 campaign, an important barometer of voters’ tendencies has remained steadfast—only about 30 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, according to the Ballotpedia polling index.

With such a low approval rating for the U.S.’s current trajectory in governance, people will vote for “which of these two candidates they feel is the best to change that direction,” MacManus said.

As voters look back at the 2024 election season, they are “disgusted with the way the campaigns have gone,” she said, because of the vitriol that both sides have lobbed at each other.

Even so, MacManus said, many Americans have held on tight during this bumpy ride because “they’ve been fascinated by this election and all the twists and turns.”

Here are a few of those.

FBI Raid, Then Indictments

A historic event that influenced the 2024 presidential campaign came even before Trump announced his third run for the presidency.

In August 2022, the FBI raided Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. No such search had ever been conducted at the home of a president or former president.

Agents seized documents, some with classified markings—a search that later led to federal charges against Trump and some of his allies.

Trump announced he was seeking reelection three months later. “From now until Election Day in 2024 … I will fight like no one has ever fought before,” he said at the time.

In March 2023, five days after he held his first campaign rally in Waco, Texas, the 45th president became the first former U.S. commander-in-chief to be indicted on criminal charges. In that case, he was accused of violating New York business records laws by the state.

Three other indictments followed, alleging that he mishandled classified documents, orchestrated false challenges to Biden’s 2020 election win, and incited protesters to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify the election results.

Trump says the years-old accusations were filed as “lawfare” to derail his reelection bid. He has denied any wrongdoing. Prosecutors have said they were following the law.

Later in 2023, Trump became the first president to be photographed for a mugshot.

His photo was taken in conjunction with his fourth indictment, an alleged election interference conspiracy in Fulton County, Georgia. That case has been on hold because of a scandal that has swirled around the prosecutor who brought the charges, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis; the outcome could affect the case’s future.

First Trial, First Conviction

This past spring, the former president stood trial in the New York business records case.

The accusations centered on money paid to an adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels. She said he had an affair with her—a claim that could have hurt his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election. Trump’s lawyer paid her to keep that allegation quiet; Trump won the election. Prosecutors allege that business records were illegally altered to hide the true purpose of the payments.

The resulting guilty verdicts on 34 charges left some of the nation’s foremost legal scholars mystified over the hard-to-define crime that jurors believe he committed.

The Biden and Trump campaigns rapidly deployed public messages spinning the conviction news their way.

Trump’s campaign labeled him a “political prisoner,” calling on Americans to oppose his conviction by a “rigged” system and to help him prevent others from being targeted for their political views.

Biden and his allies repeatedly denounced Trump as “a convicted felon.” In response, some Trump supporters began declaring they will vote for “the convicted felon.”

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s conviction, both sides had surges in financial contributions.

After the election, Trump is scheduled for sentencing in the New York case. Although probation is possible, so is jail or prison time. In addition, Trump faces several other potential trials. Although a judge dismissed the Florida classified documents case he had faced, federal authorities have appealed that ruling.

Meanwhile, Republican-led congressional inquiries are focusing on the “weaponization” of government agencies, alleging that political animus has fueled prosecutions of Trump, his allies, and other political figures.

History Made in Iowa

While Biden faced no serious challengers in the primary election, Trump initially confronted a crowded field of Republican presidential hopefuls.

His two most formidable challengers were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, a former North Carolina governor who had also served as the United Nations ambassador during Trump’s administration.

In an early test of the strength of his candidacy, however, Trump defeated his fellow Republicans in a landslide in the first-in-nation Iowa Caucus on Jan. 15, 2024. It was the coldest Iowa Caucus night in recorded history, following a blizzard that dumped heavy snowfall across the state.

The former president’s victory broke two records. By finishing nearly 30 percentage points ahead of his nearest competitor, DeSantis, he beat the prior record Republican margin of victory. That record, set in 1988, was 12.8 percent.

Trump also became the first Republican candidate to win more than 50 percent of the votes in an Iowa Caucus with more than two candidates.

His Iowa win caused the field of contenders to rapidly winnow; it proved to be the death knell for DeSantis’ campaign. Haley, however, hung on for races in a few other states before dropping out of the race in March.

A Biden–Trump rematch appeared to be a foregone conclusion.

First Son Charged, Convicted

In late 2023, Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was indicted on gun charges and tax-evasion charges in two separate federal cases.

On June 11, a jury convicted him of all three gun charges. Jurors found Hunter Biden guilty of falsifying information on a gun purchase application, inaccurately stating that he had not used drugs. The jury also found he had unlawfully possessed the weapon.

Hunter Biden later pleaded guilty to all nine federal charges he had faced in the tax evasion case.

Sentencing is expected later this month in both cases.

Biden Avoids Documents Prosecution

Special counsel Robert Hur announced on Feb. 8 that Biden would not face criminal charges for his handling of classified documents.

Hur made the decision even though he found Biden had “willfully retained” the materials after he exited the White House as vice president under President Barack Obama in 2017, when Trump took office.

Because Biden comes across as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” a jury would be unlikely to convict him, Hur wrote.

Trump and his supporters pointed out that the treatment of Biden contrasted with how his classified documents case was handled, noting that Biden’s properties weren’t subject to an FBI raid.

Pivotal Biden–Trump Debate

On June 27, Trump and Biden faced off for a debate that CNN hosted in Atlanta. It ended up being their first and only debate of the 2024 campaign—and it was arguably one of the most consequential political debates in U.S. history.

In an instant poll after the debate, 67 percent of CNN viewers said they thought Trump had won.

Some members from Biden’s own party began calling for him to withdraw from the race, based partly on his debate performance, which included frequently clearing his throat and taking long pauses between some of his sentences.

His campaign later said he suffered from a cold that day. Biden’s allies said he shouldn’t be pressured to leave the race because of one bad night; at the time, Harris said Biden had started slow but made a strong finish.

Shots Ring Out

As Trump was riding high in the wake of the debate, with polls showing him pulling further ahead of Biden, shots rang out just as he began a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, on July 13.

At least 15,000 people were in attendance at the Butler Farm Show grounds when the gunfire erupted, wounding the former president and two rallygoers. A third attendee, retired firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, was slain as he shielded his wife and daughter from the bullets.

A Secret Service countersniper returned fire, killing the gunman who fired from an unguarded rooftop. Amid the gunfire, agents clustered around Trump, forming a human shield. He had crouched down after a bullet grazed his right ear. As he climbed back onto his feet, Trump raised a fist, with blood streaking down his face, and said, “Fight, fight, fight.” A photographer captured the moment in an image that instantly became iconic, with a blue sky and the American flag serving as the backdrop.

Biden issued a statement and made a brief address to the nation, denouncing the violence.

Trump Appears With Bandaged Ear

Days after surviving the assassination attempt, the former president headed to Milwaukee for the 2024 Republican National Convention. He made an appearance the first night of the convention, wearing a white bandage over his gunshot wound; attendees later donned similar “bandages” on their right ears in a show of solidarity with Trump.

The four-day convention featured Trump’s announcement of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, along with Trump’s formal nomination. In his acceptance speech on July 18, the former president described what he experienced during the shooting.

The newly minted Trump–Vance ticket held their first joint rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 20 under heavy police presence.

Switching Hitters

On July 21, Biden announced he was discontinuing his campaign. After a brief period of speculation over whether he would endorse his second-in-command, Biden issued a separate statement saying he was endorsing Harris as his preferred successor.

Until then, the president had repeatedly denied rumors that he might exit the race amid pressure over his poor debate performance and a series of public gaffes beforehand and afterward.

After Biden exited the race, the Democratic National Committee scrambled to corral enough votes to ensure Harris would become the party’s nominee within just a few days.

Some raised concerns over the process, considering that no other candidates had been given a chance to ascend to that position, and Harris had not been on Democratic voters’ primary election ballots.

Harris officially locked up the nomination after delegates finished a virtual vote on Aug. 5, pitting her against Trump.

Biden symbolically passed the torch to her during a speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19; Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate at the convention, passing over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, among others.

Harris initially avoided media interviews but broke her two-month silence with a Sept. 25 interview on MSNBC.

She also granted a number of other interviews, including one that triggered a lawsuit from Trump. He alleges that CBS deceptively edited the Oct. 7 interview, constituting “election interference.” The suit filed Oct. 31 seeks $10 billion in damages.

Debate Over Abortion, Immigration, Pets

When ABC News hosted a debate between Harris and Trump in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, both candidates avoided giving new specifics on policies, but repeated their past positions on the economy, abortion, and immigration.

“Remember this—she is Biden,” Trump said, tying Harris to Biden’s policies, which he said caused inflation and high prices. Harris countered: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden.”

Harris said she supports a federal right to abortion, and accused Trump of wanting to sign “a national abortion ban.” He said he would not.

For weeks afterward, people were talking about Trump’s allegation that he had been told that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ domesticated animals, spawning a plethora of internet memes about “eating the cats.”

Moderators fact-checked Trump’s claim on live TV, stating that a Springfield official denied any such credible reports. Vance later stated that, as a senator, he had heard these claims from his constituents and was making a sincere effort to listen to their concerns. Sensational pet-eating claims aside, Vance also said that mass illegal immigration is causing other serious problems that need to be brought to light.

Second Would-Be Assassin

On Sept. 15, authorities arrested Ryan Wesley Routh on accusations that he was intending to shoot Trump at the former president’s golf course in Florida.

A Secret Service agent spotted a gun barrel protruding from a bushy area along a perimeter fence line. The agent fired, causing the suspect, later identified as Routh, to flee before he had been able to take aim at the former president. Agents scurried to protect Trump, who remained unharmed in the incident.

Routh remains in custody awaiting trial. Authorities have released little additional information about Routh, but The Epoch Times produced a special report tracing Routh’s path from North Carolina, to Hawaii, to Ukraine, and, eventually, to Trump’s Florida golf course.

Trump also said late September that he had been briefed on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him.”

Headline-Grabbing Appearances

Harris and Trump both paid visits to the Arizona–Mexico border. In September, Harris stated she would pursue stricter border policies if she is elected; in August, Trump said he already did so during his presidency, but the Biden–Harris administration reversed his policies.

Singer Beyonce took the stage with Harris on Oct. 25 for a Houston rally. Previously, pop music star Taylor Swift endorsed Harris. Both entertainers have millions of fans.

Two former Democratic presidential candidates have been campaigning for Trump in recent weeks. They are Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who comes from a storied Democratic family that included President John F. Kennedy Jr.; and Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who represented Hawaii. She recently announced she was joining the Republican Party.

In addition, the world’s richest man, high-tech innovator Elon Musk, revealed his support for Trump online after the first assassination attempt. Musk then spoke at Trump’s emotional return to Butler Township, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5 to honor the shooting victims and finish the rally that was disrupted by gunfire.

On Oct. 20, both candidates visited swing states. Harris celebrated her 60th birthday with speeches at Georgia churches while Trump served fries at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s.

On Oct. 27, Trump capped a series of rallies in deep blue states—where he was considered a long shot to win—with a rally at New York City’s historic 20,000-seat Madison Square Garden.

He urged people to “Dream Big Again,” a spinoff of his “Make America Great Again” slogan.

For her “closing argument,” Harris spoke Oct. 29 at the Ellipse in Washington, with the White House as a backdrop. She, too, drew tens of thousands of people. Harris called for people to “turn the page” on the Trump era.

Biden stole some of Harris’s thunder, however, by making a comment that drew controversy, as it was heard to be calling Trump’s supporters “garbage.” He was responding to the stir that came from Trump’s New York event after a comedian joked about Puerto Rico’s problem with disposing of garbage.

Trump responded to the “garbage” characterization by showing up at an Oct. 30 Wisconsin rally riding in a garbage truck, wearing a workman’s neon orange-and-yellow vest.

On Nov. 2, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner raised concerns that Harris’s “SNL” appearance on Saturday night may have violated the agency’s rule about equal time being given to candidates.

Savannah Hulsey Pointer, The Associated Press, and Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.